By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Branko2166 on 29 December 2007
Edit Thread
Game_boy said:
Branko2166 said:
For people looking to upgrade or buy new computers for gaming here's a free piece of advice. If you want to take advantage of your hardware make sure that your motherboard supports the speeds that the rest of your components will be running on.

For example it doesn't make sense to buy ram running at 1066mhz if your motherboard supports only up to 800mhz. So when building a computer make sure to find out the whole specs for each hardware component.
At the end of the day your pc is only as fast as the slowest component if you catch my drift :)

Actually, no. All components from good manufacturers will support components at least one speed grade above the manufacturers' guidance. It might seem 'risky', but it isn't and it saves you $100 on a new motherboard. For example, an FSB1600 part will work in a FSB1333 motherboard with no issues, ever. The fact that the rated speed is much lower than the real one is because a) Ratings are in worst possible conditions and b) if they get you to buy one board now and one board in six months just by changing a number that's ideal for them.

For example, an Xbox wireless hub will work with an Xbox 360 (I hear). They don't give support for it on the box because they want you to buy a new hub. It still works though.


Ofcourse its true that a lot of hardware is built like that however I was talking about optimisation and wasn't saying that it wouldn't work just that im my opinion it would be easy for someone who doesn't know much about computers to for example buy a great CPU, RAM and video card but get the cheapest motherboard because they think that the motherboard is not important. Thus that system would be restricted by the motherboard.

You gotta admit that there are some really low end motherboards out there which obviously don't support the latest hardware. So while most of the time if you pay a decent amount you should get decent hardware I am saying that a lot of people will cut corners and will end up suffering as a result.

And ofcourse my point mainly applies to people that build computers from scratch and not systems which are already built for them which like you said if the retailer is good they will put together a good system.